Linux Boot Error: Emergency Mode! (RDFE)

1) Before proceeding with Step 2 ensure you have an recovery VM located in the same Cloud Service, region and the same version (Or distribution) as the impacted VM. If you do not, create that new machine now.

2) Once you have the recovery machine created proceed to delete the affected virtual machine from the Azure Portal. Ensure to opt to KEEPall attached disks

3) Once the machine is deleted wait about 3 mins for the disk lease to expire

4) Select the recovery VM you made and select Disks -> Attach Existing

5) Navigate to the location of the VHD of the broken VM we just deleted. The path will be something like Storage Account Name -> vhds -> VHDname

8) From now on lets refer machines using the following naming convention:

A = Original VM (Inaccessible VM)

B = New VM (New Troubleshooting VM)

9) Once you have connected to VM B locate the drive name to mount, each Linux distribution is slightly different.

For Ubuntu/debian:

grep SCSI /var/log/kern.log

For Centos/Suse/Oracle/Redhat:

grep SCSI /var/log/messages

10) Mount the attached disk onto mountpoint /rescue

df -h

mkdir /rescue

For Red Hat 7.2+

mount -o nouuid /dev/sdc2 /rescue

For CentOS 7.2+

mount -o nouuid /dev/sdc1 /rescue

For Debian 8.2+, Ubuntu 16.04+, SUSE 12 SP4+

mount /dev/sdc1 /rescue

11) Change into /etc directory where the original OS disk from resides

cd /rescue/etc/

cp fstab fstab_orig

12) Now that you have made a backup of you fstab you can proceed to make the changes you require using vi, nano or your favorite text editor, this may include commenting out entries by appending a # at the start of the line.

vi fstab

cd /

umount /rescue

13) Detach the disk from VM B via the Azure portal

14) Recreate the original VM A from the repaired VHD

15) To do this navigate to OS Disks (Classic)

16) Select the now fixed VHD and select + Create VM

17) Recreate the VM putting it back into the original Cloud Service and using the same name